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THE NEXT MORNING, I was awakened before dawn by the crude rapping of one of the guards at my door, his fists pounding sharply against the wood. I murmured aloud softly, covering my head with a pillow. It was, despite the imprisonment, the most comfortable bed I had been given during my time in Feyland, and in the semi somnolent stirrings of morning I had forgotten where I was. I thought that I was back in Gregory, Oregon, my mother pounding on the door to remind me that I was late for school. I curled into a little ball, willing away the noise. Just five more minutes, I thought to myself – and then I'd force myself to get up, to pack my backpack. I wanted to lose myself in the dreamy oblivion of sleep for a few moments longer.
The knock came again, louder this time. “Princess!” came a voice. “The Pixie King demands an audience with you immediately.”
Princess. Pixie king. The words were like gunpowder blasts, sparking me into thought and action. I remembered who and where I was. Pain gripped at my heart as I rose. “One moment...” I called. “Let me get dressed!”
I went to the wardrobe, but found that the simple fairy dress the Summer Queen had supplied me with was gone. In its place was a long gown of flowing green silk, dotted with tiny emeralds along the neckline and the helm. It was pixie craft – I recognized the unmistakable marks of cruel magic in the tightness of the seams, the flowing light in and out of the emeralds. When I put on the dress I felt the fabric suck inside itself, molding itself to the contours of my body. I looked beautiful, I thought, as I gazed upon my reflection in the mirror. But it was a cold beauty, eerie and unearthly; I was not comfortable in my own skin.
“Princess!” The knock came a final time.
I emerged from the bedroom.
“I'm ready,” I said quietly.
The guards led me down the long, glimmering corridor. I gulped as I saw the decorations – the skulls and skeletons hanging up by chains along the wet stones. If this was pixie art, I thought, I was perfectly happy in a room far less decorated. But I had to be strong, to be brave. Logan was in this castle, I thought – nearby. He could even perhaps hear my footsteps; would he be comforted by them? I concentrated on my magic and tried to connect with Logan, to use my magic to hear his voice, to see him.
Logan, I whispered, in that sacred cloister of myself from which magic came. Please, Logan, are you there?
In a flash, I saw him, in my mind's eye but as clear as if he were right before me. And yet I did not see him – I felt him, became as aware of him and of his surroundings as if my soul had been transported into his body; I felt his sorrow, felt his worry, felt his pain.
I felt a howl call out from my throat, a howl of sorrow and agony.
“I will not go,” Logan was crying out. “I will not leave her!”
I heard his thoughts rippling beneath the surface. Breena – Breena, my love.
I could not breathe. Vaguely I was aware that I was still being led down the corridor by the guards; I had to keep walking. And yet all my attention was fixed on Logan, in pain now, but not the physical torment the Pixies had enacted upon him earlier. No, this was the pain of love, a pain I could well understand, to which I could well relate.
“She will not marry you!” Logan was shouting at Delano, his voice and face contorted in snarls of hatred. “I will not go! Kill me if you must! Murder me, torture me, roast me alive! She must not marry you! She does not love you!”
Did I love Logan? I couldn't tell. My heart was so full of his love for me; our telepathic link had brought love firmly into my soul, and I could not separate out what I felt for him from what he felt for me.
“You are being selfish,” said Delano. “You see – it is not merely your life or your happiness at stake, nor Breena's. The Princess Shasta is here – and I will allow her to go free only if you consent to leave – if Breena consents to marry me. If you do anything to thwart my plans, this innocent woman's life will be forfeited.”
I could feel Logan's raging stop, his lupine wrath restrained as his human compassion took over. No, as hurt and angry and scared as Logan was, he would never allow an innocent to suffer. He had risked his life to save Kian, who was far from innocent; he would never allow Shasta to be sacrificed.
“Very well,” said Logan, his voice tight as a coiled spring. “But let me see her first. Breena – let me see her.”
My heart leaped! I wanted nothing more than to see Logan again, to wrap my arms around him, to smell that familiar musk on his neck and clothes that always reminded me of the woods, of the great expanses of nature where in happier days we had been allowed to wander unrestrained and to be ourselves – free of mortal dithering and fairy politics alike. I missed those woods. I missed Logan.
“Not until I have married her,” said Delano. “The last thing I want is for a young strapping brute like yourself to sniff around the Princess, changing her mind. I cannot force her marriage. I will allow you to return to visit her, and to kiss her feet and offer your Queen thanks for your miserable life, once I have secured her promise of marriage. Halfling,” and here Delano looked down disgusted, “marriage is not like in your filthy mortal world – a mere exchange of words. Marriage is binding, here – magic of two fused into one.”
“What will you do to me?” Logan asked, his face steely with bravery.
“Let you go,” Delano shrugged. “I am an honorable pixie, after all. And when Breena sees you have gone, she will have no choice but to uphold her word. After all, I still have the Princess Shasta – as insurance...”
“Honorable!” Logan spat. “Is that what you call making a woman who doesn't love you marry you?”
“Perfectly honorable. I did not have to let you go. You are fairly our prisoner – you killed several of my men. And she is fairly agreeing to an exchange...fair's fair. But I wouldn't expect a filthy animal like you to understand justice!”
And with that my connection with Logan was broken, as I was led into the antechamber once more.
“Sit,” barked the guards. “Sit down, girl!”
“Princess,” muttered another guard, wilier in the ways of diplomacy.
“Fine, Princess then,” said the first one. And they left me to wait until at last Delano appeared from behind what seemed to be a secret passageway.
“Come with me, Princess,” said Delano, his voice smooth and silky.
He took my hand; I shuddered. Could I stand to let this creature touch me every night? I had to find a way out – some way out...
“I have let your Wolf-boy go,” said Delano. “Look out the window.”
I saw, in the distance, a troop of pixie guards escorting Logan into the snowy banks of the mountain base. When a trumpet was sounded, they threw him into the snow and marched back into formation, heading back towards the castle, leaving Logan alone – wounded, but alive. I saw him stagger up; instinctively I leaned forward, out the window, ready to shout...
“He won't hear you,” said Delano. “Look how far away he is.”
“And Shasta?”
“Shasta is well. I won't release her – not yet. Not until the ceremony is finalized. It can be your first order as Pixie Queen – the order to release her.”
“Is she being kept under good conditions? I want to see where she is being kept!”
“In a state room like yours, Princess. Fear not. You are a good negotiator; I admire that in a woman. I will not break my word. It costs me nothing to be kind to her. Only the price of a few bolts of pixie silk. I got her a dress too, you see.” He fingered the folds of the dress he had given me. “You see, even if I am to let her go...untouched.” he sneered. “I should at least get the pleasure of looking at a woman at her best.”
“You're digusting!” I moved away from him. “I'm sixteen!”
“Well of age in Feyland,” said Delano. “And you're mortal – at that. You will die soon.”
“Soon?”
“In a hundred years you will be dead.” Delano shrugged. “Moments, for a pixie. Just moments. And every second that passes you get older, your beauty closer to fading away. I don't see the point of waiting. You, my dearest Princess, are almost dead already – in terms of how we pixies view time. You are like a delicate hothouse flower, destined to bloom only for a short while.”
I felt sick.
“You are beautiful – you are fertile. And your ephemeral mortality only makes you that much more desirable. I don't want to waste any time in experiencing you.”
“That's disgusting!” I said.
“What, sex?” He said it with a shrug. “For humans, perhaps. For fairies – certainly! They are the most prudish of all the races. But not for pixies. We are like your animals – no regret, no fear, no hesitations. We let our instincts run free. We see nothing shameful about desire.”
He saw my cheeks blush; he stroked them lightly. “But you do.”
“Where I come from, you'd be arrested!” I said, my voice shaking.
“Where I come from, you'd be married already,” he said, and shrugged again. “Do not apply your human standards to me.”
I couldn't help it; tears began trickling down my eyes. I tried to think of Logan – connect with him again – feel where he was, see what he saw...
In my mind's eye I saw a Wolf, prowling through the snow, his eyes hot with rage and pain. And I saw a knight approaching him – a knight in the familiar garb of the Summer Court, with kind eyes and a soft smile and long, red hair that shone in the wintry breezes. I knew him – my instincts took over – he was one of my men, of my court. He was a man I had heard described many times before.
Rodney.